DEFENCE

RAF Puma XW 221 Crash

Adam Ingram: On 19 July 2004 a RAF Puma helicopter of 33 Squadron crashed on landing at Basra airfield, Iraq, resulting in the death of the non-handling pilot, and injury to the handling pilot and crewman.
	The RAF board of inquiry has now reported, and the findings have been given to the next of kin of the deceased crew member. I have today placed the Military Aircraft Accident Summary, which summarises the findings of the Board of Inquiry, in the Library of the House.

Defence Munitions Centre (Crombie)

Adam Ingram: Between 1 September 2003 and 12 March 2004 the future role of crombie study team carried out a comprehensive and objective examination of business processes, working practices and staffing levels within the Defence Munitions Centre (DMC) Crombie in Dunfermline West. The review was undertaken to distinguish between core and non-core activities for the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency (DSDA) and the then Warship Support Agency in order to identify any areas of potential overlap, conflict or concern.
	The selected option entails structural and business changes at DMC Crombie, resulting in the reduction of 142 posts and the progressive removal of munitions -related tasks. The study team determined that the explosives storage capacity available at DMC Crombie is not required to meet the known and projected storage requirements of its customers. The team recommended the cessation or relocation of some non-core and all munitions processing tasks over a period of five years.
	Last year I decided, subject to TU consultation, to implement those recommendations. The consultation period has now finished and I have given final approval for the changes to be made.
	The recommendations will be implemented as quickly as possible so as to limit staff uncertainty. Major DMC Crombie customers will be made aware of the outcome of the study and will be given assurances that outputs will be maintained at the required levels both during and after implementation.
	Implementation will be phased with a planned reduction of 67 posts in the first year, and a further 75 posts between years 2006–07 to 2009–10. Every opportunity will be taken to reduce via natural wastage and voluntary retirement, but redundancies may still be necessary. A "without commitment" preference exercise will be carried out to identify volunteers for redundancy. Staff affected will be compensated under the terms of the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme and the services of the MOD Outplacement Service would be available to help those who may be made redundant to identify new opportunities as appropriate.

EDUCATION AND SKILLS

Education and Skills Select Committee's Report (Government Response)

Ruth Kelly: I have today published the Government response to the Select Committee report on the White Paper "Higher Standards, Better Schools for All".
	I am grateful to the Committee for their work in producing the report. I have considered their recommendations carefully, alongside many representations from key stakeholders.
	I am clear that there is widespread agreement to the aims and objectives of the White Paper: namely, excellence and equity for all. Much has been achieved through the radical programme of investment and reform over the last eight years. This year saw the highest standards we have ever achieved at every Key Stage. However, it would be wrong to rest upon these achievements whilst, for example, more than seven out of every ten children in receipt of free school meals fail to achieve five or more good GCSEs.
	I am pleased, therefore, that the Committee accepts the key building blocks of the White Paper. In particular, the report welcomes reforms on personalisation, on discipline and behaviour and on improving the quality of teaching and leadership through better professional development and ongoing workforce reform. The report makes a series of recommendations in relation to school admissions, Trust schools and the role of the local authority, many of which I have accepted and which are reflected in the Education and Inspections Bill that will be introduced into the House of Commons today.

ENVIRONMENT FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

Low Level Radioactive Waste

Elliot Morley: On 18 March 2005, I announced that the UK Government and devolved Administration Ministers had agreed that a review of policy for the long-term management of the UK's low level radioactive waste (LLW) should be undertaken.
	I explained that the initial stages of the review would be overseen by a Steering Group drawn from the Government's Radioactive Waste Policy Group (RWPG). I said that the Steering Group would be organising two national stakeholder workshops during 2005 to support consideration of the issues and possible solutions, and that this would contribute to the preparation and issue of a Government consultation on the revised policy proposals.
	I can now inform this House that all this work has been completed and that this has resulted in the publication today of the consultation document "A Public Consultation on Policy for the Long-Term Management of Solid Low Level Radioactive Waste in the United Kingdom", copies of which have been placed in the Library of the House. This consultation is being sponsored jointly by Defra, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Scottish Executive, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Department of the Environment. Responses to the consultation are due by 31 May 2006.
	The LLW management policy review is being carried out for three main reasons:
	the national LLW disposal facility, near to Drigg in Cumbria, does not have sufficient capacity to meet future forecasts of LLW arisings. Indeed, the Environment Agency's ongoing review of the site's disposal authorisation has served to call into question its previously estimated capacity;
	the NDA must have the necessary disposal routes available if it is to progress its decommissioning and clean-up programme of the UK's older, publicly-owned civil nuclear sites. It is also questionable whether the large amounts of lightly contaminated rubble and soil that will arise from such decommissioning and clean-up should be dug up and transported over large distances, merely to deposit it again at the LLW disposal facility close to Drigg, which is a limited and relatively expensive national resource;
	The policy proposals on which views are being sought include:
	whether we should allow greater flexibility in the way LLW is managed. Government propose that it should not all be sent to the LLW disposal site near to Drigg in Cumbria. This would particularly apply to the large amounts of very low activity LLW that will arise from decommissioning and clean-up activities that could be disposed in various ways, at the site of arising if this is the best practicable option. But this flexibility must also maintain the necessary level of safety through the use of a risk-informed approach, and the preparation of plans and safety cases that are acceptable to the regulatory bodies; coupled with this more flexible approach to disposal, could we effectively place greater emphasis on minimisation of arisings through use of the waste management hierarchy advocated for other forms of non-radioactive waste management;
	whether NDA should be placed in the lead for providing disposal facilities for all nuclear LLW, and also whether it should make its disposal facilities available for non-nuclear LLW generators where this is practicable, subject to appropriate commercial arrangements. It is also proposed that the NDA would be placed in the lead for securing any replacement to the LLW disposal facility close to Drigg;
	whether local communities should take greater responsibility, through appropriate use of planning strategies, for dealing with non-nuclear LLW arising from non-nuclear producers—eg hospitals and research and educational establishments—that serve their community. Government propose to contribute to this process by commissioning a study of the extent and geographical distribution of arisings of such non-nuclear industry wastes.
	The LLW management policy review is being carried out in parallel with the work of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM), which is assessing options for the long-term management of the UK's higher activity wastes. The outcome of the LLW consultation, and the policy statement resulting from it, should be available in the summer of this year at about the same time as CoRWM delivers its higher activity waste management recommendations.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

Hong Kong

Ian Pearson: The latest Report on the implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong will be published tomorrow and copies will be placed in the Library of the House. A copy of the report will also be available on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website www.fco. gov.uk/.
	The Report covers the period from 1 July to 31 December 2005 and includes a foreword by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. I commend the Report to the House.

WORK AND PENSIONS

Benefit Fraud Inspectorate Reports

James Plaskitt: On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the BFI inspection reports on the following councils were published today: Borough of Poole Council, Rugby Borough Council, Cannock Chase District Council, Hastings Borough Council, Waverley Borough Council, Cardiff County Council, Mendip District Council, Fenland District Council and Leicester City Council. Copies have been placed in the Library.
	The BFI reports detail a range of strengths and weaknesses in the housing benefit services provided by councils and make recommendations to improve the security and efficiency of benefit delivery.
	My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is considering the reports and may ask the councils for proposals in response to BFI's findings

HOME DEPARTMENT

Probation Services

Charles Clarke: I am today placing in the Library the report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Probation into the tragic murder of John Monckton in Chelsea on 29 November 2004, which was committed by Damien Hanson and Elliot White. Both offenders were under the supervision of the London Probation Area at the time of the murder. I am grateful to the Chief Inspector for his rapid and thorough investigation in response to my request.
	The Chief Inspector describes a sustained and repeated failure on the part of the London Probation Area, over 2003 and 2004, to assess and manage these two offenders to a professional standard. He catalogues numerous ways in which the Probation Service's own national standards for the management of offenders were sidelined or ignored.
	The public has a right to expect that everything possible will be done to assess and manage the risk that dangerous offenders pose. Tragically that did not happen in the management of Hanson and White. The present Chief Officer of Probation in London has suspended four officers while a review is undertaken into their conduct in the handling of these cases.
	The Chief Inspector has reported that risk was not adequately assessed and then the systems in place to manage risk were not properly implemented. Some of this can be attributed to problems faced in London at the time, and which are now being addressed under a new Chief Officer who has been in post since April 2005. During this time London has moved from being the worst performing of all 42 probation areas in England and Wales, now to rank at number 28, and the improvements continue.
	The Chief Inspector has made four key recommendations addressed to the Government. I accept them all without reservation. He emphasises the importance of following approved procedures in the management of offenders. We shall be issuing guidelines to all Probation Areas drawing attention to the detailed practice recommendations made in his report. He points out the need for a clear lead responsibility for managing individual cases, and the need for effective management. I accept this entirely. We have already begun to introduce end-to-end offender management. Under this system every offender in the community will have a single, named offender manager, who will be responsible—and held accountable—for the way an offender is managed from beginning to end of sentence. In this way we will avoid the gaps and discontinuities which were such a serious feature of the way in which Hanson was managed. He proposes a clearer performance management framework for handling cases which pose a risk of harm to the public. His recommendation is well made and we will give the highest priority to performance management in these cases. In June we will be reporting publicly on our first year of a "Risk of Harm Improvement Plan" for all probation areas. He recommends that in exceptional cases of serious further offending by offenders under probation supervision, in addition to the internal review there should also be an independent investigation, and that its report should be published. I will implement this immediately. By this means I believe that we will continue to drive up performance and sustain public confidence.
	Additionally the Chief Inspector recommends to the Parole Board that it puts in place arrangements to ensure proper liaison between the Probation Service and the Board, when an offender's circumstances change between the decision to release and the actual release. The Chairman of the Parole Board is content for me to say on behalf of the Board that it accepts this recommendation, and will implement it as soon as possible.
	The public has a right to be protected from offenders who, like Damien Hanson, have repeatedly shown themselves to be ready to use violence to achieve their ends. We have already taken steps to ensure the public gets that protection which underlies the Government's belief that dangerous and violent offenders should only be let out of prison if it is clear that they are no longer a risk to the public.
	Since April last year, when provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 were implemented, anyone who has committed a serious sexual or violent offence has been liable to be imprisoned for an indeterminate period. This means that such offenders will not be released into the community until the Parole Board assess that it is safe to do so. In some cases, this may be never. We have introduced this sentence to make sure that the most dangerous offenders really do spend the whole of the rest of their life in prison—even if they do not have a life sentence. This was a significant change which is now being put into effect and has important implications for the future. I will be examining whether there are any means by which this approach can be applied to those who were convicted before last April.
	In addition to reforming the sentencing framework, we have also improved our system for assessing risk. OASys is internationally recognised as a world-class assessment tool and we will use this system to assess all offenders under the supervision of the probation and prison services. We have also consulted on plans for reforming probation services, and have committed to introducing a phased programme of contestability to ensure that services are provided by the best possible partnerships and providers.
	However, although I fully accept the Chief Inspector's recommendations and we have already improved our system for public protection, there is more we must do. That is why public protection is at the heart of the Five-Year Prison and Probation Strategy I published earlier this month and is the highest priority of the new National Offender Management Service. The Strategy sets out our commitment to:
	implement the new indeterminate sentence for public protection;
	keep up our excellent record on escapes from high-security prisons (with no escapes of Category A prisoners since 1996);
	ensure better parole decisions, with the Parole Board putting the safety of the public first; and every released lifer living under the threat of recall to prison;
	secure continuous improvement in the way offenders are supervised in the community, with better management of risk and offender managers working jointly with police, the Prison Service and others to supervise dangerous offenders.
	The commitments in the Five-Year Strategy together with the recommendations of the Chief Inspector's report provide a firm basis for improving the ways in which we can best protect the public. However, in light of the Chief Inspector's Report I intend to look again at the need for any further changes which may be necessary, including in relation to those convicted before the Criminal Justice Act 2003 came into effect. I will report my conclusions to the House by April and outline any further steps we intend to take.
	I conclude by expressing my deepest sympathy for Mrs. Monckton and her family. All of us who followed the harrowing accounts of her husband's tragic murder could not fail to be touched by her and her young daughter's courage, and by the dignity which she has shown since.

Police Service (Negotiating and Consultative Machinery)

Charles Clarke: In September last year, I invited John Randall, the independent chair of the Police Negotiating Board (PNB) and the Police Advisory Board for England and Wales (PABEW), to conduct a review of the negotiating and consultative machinery in the police service. That machinery comprises the PNB, the PAB and Police Staff Council (PSC). I asked him to consult the parties to the procedures and to bring forward proposals for reform necessary to ensure the machinery is fit for the purpose of supporting the police modernisation agenda.
	I am today placing in the Library of the House a copy of Mr. Randall's report "Collective Bargaining for a Modernised Workforce". The report contains 38 recommendations and these are separately listed in the executive summary on pages three to eight. Members will be interested in these matters given the statutory basis of the PNB.
	I will be consulting police stakeholders on the report and implementation of its recommendations and aim to present proposals to the PNB, PAB and PSC later this year.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

EU Structural Funds Programmes 2007–13

Alun Michael: I am today launching a consultation on a draft National Strategic Reference Framework for EU Structural Funds Programmes in the UK during the 2007–13 period. The National Framework will establish the broad priorities for Structural Funds spending across the UK for this period.
	The European Council of 15–16 December 2005 reached agreement on the next EC budget, including future Structural Funds expenditure, for the 2007–13 Financial Perspective. As I explained in my statement to Parliament of 20 December, the UK will receive approximately €9.4 billion (in 2004 prices) in Structural Funds from 2007 to 2013, including approximately €2.6 billion in Convergence funding for its poorest regions (Cornwall, West Wales and the Valleys and the Highlands and Islands); approximately €6.2 billion in Competitiveness funding for other regions; and approximately €0.6 billion in Co-operation funding for cross-border cooperation projects.
	The member states are now in the process of finalising a package of four Structural Funds Regulations, which will establish the rules for delivering the funds during the 2007–13 budgetary cycle. Under the new Regulations, each member state will be required to draw up a National Strategic Reference Framework that establishes its broad priorities for Structural Funds spending, while demonstrating consistency with the EU's objectives for regional policy.
	The main purpose of this consultation is to invite comments from interested parties on the Government's draft Framework. My Department has developed the Framework in close collaboration with other Government Departments with responsibility for Structural Funds and the Scottish Executive, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Administration. The Framework provides an overview of the economic strengths and weaknesses of the UK's nations and regions, and puts forward a proposed approach to future Structural Funds spending across the UK. It includes a strong focus on activities to promote enterprise, innovation, sustainable communities, sustainable development, skills and employment, in support of the Lisbon and Gothenburg agendas.
	At the same time, the consultation invites comments on two related issues: the Government's proposals for distributing the UK's Structural Funds allocations under the new Competitiveness Objective; and administrative arrangements for delivering the funds in the UK during the 2007–13 budgetary cycle. The consultation begins on 28 February 2006 and ends on 22 May 2006.
	The Government will aim to publish a response to the consultation within three months following the close of the consultation. This will include a summary of responses, a statement of the Government's position on the issues raised, and the final National Strategic Reference Framework for the UK.

TRANSPORT

Surface Transport (Emissions Trading)

Alistair Darling: On 22 February my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Trade and Industry and I wrote to Vice-President Jacques Barrot, Vice-President Gunter Verhuegen and Commissioner Stavros Dimas of the European Commission expressing the UK's support for the Commission review of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and to draw early attention to the potential expansion of the EU ETS to the surface transport sector. The letter asked that the inclusion of emissions from surface transport be considered as part of the review and offered our active contribution to work in this area. A copy of the letter is available in the Libraries of both Houses.